When it comes to sport at the professional level, the questions “how much” and “how long” usually is all one needs to know about a player or coach’s status. Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher avoided explaining why he was leaving the Steelers at a press conference at team headquarters Friday with a year left on his contract. Why? Probably out of respect for the Rooney family. Cowher likely figures that it doesn’t serve him any good to tell anyone why he feels he’s worth closer to $9 million per season than the $4 or $5 million he was being paid. On the surface, he says he wants to spend more time with his wife and family -- they’re going to get a dog, and he wants to golf. Well earned choices, to be sure, but something feels like it’s wrong. At his previous press conference the Pittsburgh native said he wasn’t burned out. Cowher has earned a mulligan with the people of Pittsburgh. He can basically do whatever he wants and no one will complain too loudly because of the franchise’s first Super Bowl win in 27 years. But he’s still got to take that next tee shot sometime. It’s hard to guess what he’s really going to do next. I think he’ll be coaching the Cleveland Browns a couple years from now. We’ll see. In any case, congratulations to just the second Steelers coach since 1969, when Chuck Noll took over after Joe Paterno turned down the job. Good luck, Mr. Cowher. As he said on his last day as the squad’s head coach … “You can take the people out of Pittsburgh but you can’t take the Pittsburgh out of people.”

Chris Chambers just finished possibly the worst season a wide receiver has ever had in the history of the NFL. Chambers was targeted 154 times this year, the fourth most in the league. He turned all of those looks into just 59 catches, a historically low 38.3 percent reception rate. Of the top-16 most targeted receivers, every other one eclipsed 1,000 yards, with most in the 1,200 range. And then there’s Chambers, who finished with just 677 receiving yards. Terry Glenn was targeted 44 fewer times, yet accumulated 1,047 yards. And don’t blame poor quarterback play, as the rest of Miami’s receivers combined to catch 63 percent of intended passes. In 64 fewer looks, teammate Marty Booker accounted for nearly 100 more receiving yards and two more TDs, while hauling in 61.1 percent of the passes thrown his way.

In contrast, Lee Evans was probably football’s most productive receiver. While Chambers got 4.4 yards per target, Evans got 9.4, second only to Reggie Wayne (9.6), who had far superior teammates. Defenses needed to worry about stopping Marvin Harrison and the best QB in the game, while Buffalo is bereft of talent. Evans also hauled in six passes for 40 yards or more, and if JP Losman continues to improve (7.1 YPA this year), Evans could easily crack the top-5 as a fantasy WR next year.

Speaking of which, props to RotoWire’s Chris Liss, who was ahead of the curve regarding Evans. In the preseason rankings, Liss had Evans pegged as the #11 fantasy WR. RotoWorld had him #26, Fanball #24, TheHuddle #23, etc. Liss was also the only one to rank Evans ahead of Chambers, so we can forgive him for putting Derrick Mason above TJ Houshmandzadeh.

Bottom line, Chris Chambers is a dreadful receiver in real football, and it finally translated into the fantasy realm this year. Lee Evans is already a top-5 WR talent in the league, and fantasy owners should take notice, as his numbers will reflect this as soon as next year.

Random question: How do Drew Brees and Carson Palmer finish 2nd and 3rd in Comeback Player of the Year voting? It’s one thing for Brees to rebound from that 24 TD, 7.2 YPA, 16 games played 2005 season, but how about Palmer bouncing back from his 32 TD, 7.5 YPA, MVP-worthy 2005 campaign? Someone get the AP a dictionary.

I know there is plenty of time for NFL Draft conjecture, but now that we know Oakland has the top pick in the 2007 Draft, let me just say - as the guy that covered the Raiders this year - that Oakland absolutely has to take Brady Quinn.

They passed on Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler last year because they supposedly had quarterbacks for the present (Aaron Brooks) and the future (Andrew Walter). The guy they took instead – safety Michael Huff - had an up-and-down season (at best) and while he might wind up being worth the #7 pick, I don't see how Oakland can remain convinced that they are set at the quarterback position. Even an organization as out of touch as the Raiders has to realize they need a new signal caller.

Brooks is clearly done as an NFL quarterback, but it was the play of Walter in 2006 that made for the bigger story. While it is true that the former Sun Devil played for a very bad coach, had an offensive coordinator fresh off a Bed And Breakfast stint, was armed with a #1 wide receiver that rarely tried, and dropped back behind the worst offensive line in football, that still doesn't excuse just how awful he was. Walter completed 53.3% of his passes, threw 13 picks with just three touchdowns, and compiled a horrific 55.8 QB rating. Plus, he mouthed off a couple of times and showed very few leadership qualities. Oh yeah, and he was also injury prone. Pretty solid all the way around.

Fortunately for the Raiders, Quinn looks like the real deal. Unfortunately for the Raiders, Quinn's biggest weakness is the pass rush. When he has time to throw he can dice up any defense, but when the rush is on (see: the UCLA and Michigan games), he has a rough go of it. This means that if Oakland is to draft Quinn, they will need to spend the rest of their offseason fixing that miserable o-line. They need a new ... well, pretty much everything, including left tackle (Robert Gallery isn’t very good, folks).

In fact, the offensive line is so bad that the Raiders may be tempted to go that way on draft day, especially with Wisconsin's Joe Thomas available. To me this, would be a mistake, as would the selection of Georgia Tech's Calvin Johnson, because while you need to give a quarterback blocking and a guy to throw to (and with Moss on his way out, Johnson could slide right in), you need the quarterback first and foremost.

How often does this really work? When you use a timeout to do that, with a minute left and likely to still get the ball back with time enough to score, isn't using such a timeout a waste? Marvin Lewis did this on Sunday, and I just don't understand it. At least the field goal didn't put the Bengals behind, so it could have been worse, I suppose.

The worst example of this, by the way, was a college game - when Nebraska wasted a timeout icing the Texas kicker, when (a) it was a chipshot field goal, and (b) put Nebraska behind.